Age 32 - 177 Days: My social life improved greatly

Submitted by admin on Thu, 08/28/2014 - 19:45

So my counter says 177 days. I'll reset it soon but before I do that I want to share my story. Six months ago I decided to nofap and I must say it was a good decision. My social life improved greatly as I avoid being home alone in the evening. I run, faster than before. I was reading self improvement stuff, fighting my social anxiety. And about a month ago I decided to put my energy to dating... That's where the slope started. I was flooded with positive emotions, huge ego boost because most first dates resulted in second dates and some in third, I really enjoyed that but also started to get some ideas. Then I broke my hard mode, about three weeks ago. Oh well, no sweat, we both enjoyed it after all. But the slope became rather steep from there.

I already posted couple of days ago that my mood swings are quite wild. I'm fighting the urge right now by writing this. Overlooking past couple of days I can say that topic of sex and relationships or lack of one or another was much more frequent in conversations I had. With colleagues at lunch, with my sis, with friends at dinner. It's as if the urge was seeping through my concious flood gates. Just ten minutes ago I caught myself thinking of visiting night club or browsing for escort just to remind myself it's not much different than porn, you just pay for a fuck instead of pretty pictures. Damn it, must not think of these thngs

TLDR(because it's too long to even scroll down) :) I remember from my studies the ideal of kalos kagathos, it's beauty, it's virtue, it's chivalry, all in one. You'll become anything you want, as long as you keep feeding your brain right inputs and porn is not one of the right ones. Abstaining is a small feat, you probably achieved bigger ones in your past without even realizing. Thank you all for sharing your stories and daily statuses and all, it makes hell of a difference to know me, you and others are not alone in this fight.

My background, skip if you don't care ;) I've been fapping and experimenting since I was 10 I guess. Used to have couple of magazines under rug until I managed to buy my first PC. Ever since then porn occupied most of the drive space I had. You could say I have OCD for stashing porn :) I'm aware of it. I started with softcore and gradually moved to hardcore, even bought some toys... I lost my virginity when I was 25 and had two long term relationships and two shorter ones. Now I'm 32 and it's about 9 months since I last got laid.

I never considered myself porn addict per se, although I can clearly see that it played role in ruining my last relationship. I never really felt urge to fap every day or multiple times a day so there were couple of times in the past when I voluntarily abstained for couple of days, maximum being about two weeks, no sweat. I also consider myself lucky I haven't developed death grip or ED. But there was always something missing and many people here seem to be in the same boat.

Never before I thought of myself as achieving person but in retrospect I always had some kind of goal. It just never occured to me. Say what?! Maybe you don't realize it, maybe you think you do what needs to be done or maybe you think you do nothing at all. Let me tell you about my goals. They will seem trivial, everyne can do that, just like nofapping, right? Right ;)

Being around computers from childhood and loving technology it was obvious choice to try to get a degree from tech university. What goal is that? Well, that goal took six years of my life and while I did it I really didn't bother about my social life. Except for studying I spent those six years mostly in dorm playing games and fapping. Sounds familiar? ;) It seemed like obligation towards my parents then but it was really a challenge to finish my MSc. You only realize how your brains and any education beyond high school is important when you look around at my age. When you walk around the mall, when you go to the high school reunion, when you listen to people in the street. For every university friend you had there's a dozen people barely managing through their life. I bitched about school thousand times, I skipped classes, I barely did some tests but I did it. There were about 900 of us in first semester only to be reduced to about 125 in the last. Think you can manage?

When I emerged from uni dorm I was really poor soul, I developed social anxiety. My sister used to buy me "fancy" clothes. By fancy I mean fitting and not the most basic black or grey tee. I could hardly walk into a store and all red in the face dash through girls section to mens. Looking a girl in the eye? Are you crazy? :) Anyway, you gotta do what you gotta do, so I was out there for a job. Another very important goal. Only much later I realized that my then boss used to be of the same kind and saw his younger self sitting in front of him in the interview. I got hired in small software house and started to look around and slowly found out there were other people in the office and a girl! I remember thinking of her being far from the porn star "ideal". But being around people opened my eyes and I became more aware of my surroundings and myself in the society. As a junior developer I needed a lot of help. But I grew more confident over time with help of others who encouraged me all the time. And that girl? We never crossed the line of office camaraderie but I came to like her the way she was. From almost autistic MSc to IT professional, 4 years. Yay! I read multiple times here that guys ditched their poor work and started to do something real, something meaningful. Also I've met many people in my life who are stuck in their work whole life. If you don't enjoy job at least a little it's not a job, it's a sentence. Few people understand that, even fewer people live by it. Not everyone can be Steve Jobs but you really don't want to be that Joe from a PET bottle factory. How does this relate to nofaping? We're men, we are achievers by nature. We're constantly seeking challenges although you may not even know it. What is mastering CoD/BF3/MtG/DoD/(insert your favourite game here) if not some kind of accomplishment? But those are virtual achievements in virtual worlds with artificial rules. The real thing is much tougher but also more rewarding. PMOing gives you instant almost effortless pleasure just like owning enemy flag. Slowly you forget about the real world, real achievements, real girls, real sex...if you ever had one in the first place. Fulfilling job is a place to start, go for it if you dare.

I dated my first girl when I was 14 and then I got my first computer :) You can guess what followed ;) Yeah, lots and lots of fapping and a downspiral of lower self esteem and courage. My first real relationship, my first real sex didn't happen until I was 25. And for some time I despised fapping and stopped because I felt like I was cheating on her. Two years later we broke up and I started fapping again. But I also started another challenge without really thinking about it. I saw all the other IT guys in the company and there was fleeting thought that I don't want to be skinny guy in cargo pants and ridiculous tee anymore. So I started working out and running. Three relationships (and periods of nofapping) later I'm quite happy with my looks, not really muscular but definitely appealing and I can see I'm drawing attention when I dress well in the morning. I'm senior IT with great salary. I bitch about my work from time to time but I like what I'm doing most of the time. Single, mind you, but I'm really happy about what I've managed to do so far. What I'm not proud of is fapping through my last relationship. I fapped almost every morning when she left for work. It worsened up to a point where we only had sex once in two weeks. I alienated myself from her, became my old dorm fapping self, not giving her enough love. Only now I see what fapping can do to a relationship. Tough lesson learned the hard way, you don't want to do that.

About the same time I realized I want to be good looking I also realized the brain really does work like a computer, it will process what you feed it. I never studied psychology but friend of mine does. Few dozens of articles and vids later I know I've been programming myself all those years. All those goals, voluntary and those more subtle and invisible were my own programming. All of us do that all the time and PMOing is no exception. Recently my psychology friend complained about lack of real men, that guys don't chase girls even for the incentive of sex anymore because it's too easy to access porn anytime anywhere. It is common that when some interesting idea occurs you become more sensitive to similar ideas. Suddenly I remembered I read somewhere about testosterone levels rising when abstaining. Suddenly I discovered /r/nofap. Suddenly other friend with his own problems borrows me book by David Deida (it reads like Jehova's witnesses pamphlet but the main idea of the book is good). Suddenly I stumbled upon The Misandry Bubble article and regardless of it being almost a conspiracy theory it has some good points. Suddenly I learned my very close friend's been practicing nofap for four years because he realized it's better for his relationships, he was surprised when I told him it's becoming kind of a trend.

To understand you have a problem is a first step to solving it. Thirty days is just a small achievement but it had tremendous impact on me and I challenge any newcomer to endure. It was relatively easy for me to nofap. But I also made great progress in keeping myself busy, getting my butt off the computer, spending more time with friends, eyeing strangers, talking to them from time to time. No luck with girls so far...if you don't count my first ever sex friend :D

I read a lot in these past weeks. About psychology, relationships, communication, motivation. Here in /r/nofap, elsewhere. It was interesting mix of ideas, notions and facts from all kinds of sources. Everything makes sense now. My fapping, social anxiety, obsession with (porn)ideal girl, inability to talk to girls and situations where I deliberately ignored them. Everything is connected to fapping and unhealthy doses of porn.

I try to encourage others here because I know what positive examples can do for a guy. I didn't have one, only much later I acknowledged my best friend as sort of a father I was missing.

All in all, I feel like Mr. Awesome from third week of nofapping. Superpowers, they do exist, although it's only you who can bring them to life. Thanks all of you who write posts, encourage others and bring ideas to the table. Most of what's written above is just a short version of what's been on my mind for couple of weeks although some of the ideas go much deeper to the past.

Gary Wilson's Radio Show

Public Speakers

Uncle Bob's Porn Recovery Tips

User login

Navigation

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of the science behind addiction. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Any information you gather here or in the related forum is not professional advice and is provided solely for educational and informational purposes. Thanks for sharing your experiences and insights, as this is a group effort. Please know that anything you share, even in posts protected from public viewing, may be included in future materials, although extreme care will be taken to insure that no details that would identify you personally will be included.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License